Death

Sunk eyes, cold lips, chaps faln, cheeks pale and wan
Are onely bugbeares falsely frighting man;
This is the vizard, not deaths proper face,
For who looks through it with the eye of Grace
Shall find death deckt in so divine a ray
That none would be such a self-foe to stay
In mortall Clouds, did not the wiser hand
Of supreme power joyn with his strict command,
Pangs in our dissolution, which all shun,
But would wish, if they knew life then begun.
Man is a Creature mixt of Heaven and Earth;
Of beast and Angell; when he leaves this breath
He is all Angell; The Soules future eye
Is by the prospect of Etern•ty
Determin'd onely; who content doth rest
With present good no better is then Beast.
The heathens prov'd since the soule cannot find
In Natures store to satisfie the mind,
Her essence Supernat'rall, and shall have
Her truest object not before the Grave.
Could I surmise the Immateriall mate
Of this dull flesh should languish after fate
Like widdowed Turtles; or the glimmering light
Bereav'd of her dark lanthorn should be quite
Blown out by death; or dwell on faithlesse mire,
Inhopitable fens, like foolish fire
Wandring through dismal vales of horrid night
Th' approach of death deservedly might fright.
But faiths clear eye more certainely surveyes
Then any optick Organ, for the rayes
That shew her object to us are divine
Reflected by Th' omniscient Christalline.
They then who surely know death leade•h right
To a vast Sea of ravishing delight
Cannot, when he knocks at their earthen Gate,
Suffer him storm his entrance, but dilate
Their ready hearts as to a friend, for now
He beares no sting, no horror in his brow;
The Christiall-Ruby streame which did pursue
The spear that sluc't Christs side dyde his grim hue
To white and red, beautys complection:
He comes no more to spoile thy mansion,
But to afford thee that Inheritance
Which cannot be conceiv'd without a Trance;
To be translated to the fellowship
Of Angells, there with an immortall lip
To drink Nectarean bowles of endlesse good,
Where the Creators face is the Soules food.
The best condition here is but to be
An elect spouse to that great deitie,
But death the Bride-maid leads us to the bed
Where youth and pleasures are eternised:
When I consider the whole world obeys
Creations law, onely untame man strayes,
I cannot think this is his proper sphear
Where all his actions move irregular
Nor shall my wishes ever so exclude
The decent orderly vicissitude
Of Natures constant Harmony, to pray
For a harsh jarring by unruly stay.
These with the p•ines and shame of doting age
Wit cause the mind betimes to loath her Cage.